


Help! I(26F elf) accidentally fell in love with my husband(28M human)

by Weevilo707



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Online Romance, based off of those reddit posts, you know the ones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:48:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28375710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weevilo707/pseuds/Weevilo707
Summary: Lup had decided that this had gone on for long enough. She needed some fresh eyes, some advice from someone who hadn't been around for the last ten years of falling in love and pining and suffering. She needed someprofessional help.But that sounded like a lot of work, so barring that she figured she could at least ask the internet.
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans/Lup
Comments: 83
Kudos: 399





	Help! I(26F elf) accidentally fell in love with my husband(28M human)

Lup waited until she was absolutely certain that Barry was asleep. He usually fell asleep before her, being human and all, so that wasn’t too hard. When he got up from the couch, stretching and fighting a yawn before asking her if she was going to come to bed too, it wasn’t suspicious for her to wave him off and insist she’d meet him later.

Barry had nodded, wishing her a goodnight before heading to his bedroom. Lup had made sure that he was well out of earshot before she slumped down on the couch and sighed, holding up her hand to glare at the wedding ring wrapped around her finger like it had personally insulted her.

She’d decided a week ago that this had gone on long enough. She needed help. She needed some fresh eyes on the situation, which meant she couldn’t go to her brother or any of their friends. They had all been watching them for too long and were too involved to be a reliable source.

She needed some _professional_ help.

But that sounded like a lot of work, so barring that, she figured she could at least ask the internet.

Lup waited an hour after Barry went to bed, telling herself that tonight she would lay it all out there. It was most likely that no one would respond, but maybe writing out everything would help put some things in order in her brain. Peaking into his bedroom, she could see for sure that Barry was out cold. Letting out a sigh of relief, Lup went back to the living room, grabbing her laptop on the way.

Pulling up reddit and going to r/relationship-advice, she could at least comfort herself with the knowledge that she had made this account for the sole purpose of asking this question.

Taking a deep breath and one last glance towards Barry’s bedroom door, she started to write.

> **Help!** **I(26F elf) accidentally fell in love with my husband(28M human)**
> 
> I know this doesn’t sound like a problem but please bear with me as I try to explain.
> 
> Let me start from the beginning, and from here on out we’ll call my husband BB. BB and I have known each other for almost ten years now. We met in highschool and, me, him and my twin brother (TT) were pretty inseparable. So we decided to all go to the same college together, and BB and I eventually got into the same grad program (bio with a focus on longevity of different races lifespans and such). For basically all of college all three of us were living together.
> 
> The problems started when my brother started dating. Now his fiancé (K) is a great guy, nothing wrong there. Him and TT met our senior year of college and hit it off near instantly, after two months my brother was already talking about moving out. BB and I were looking at grad schools, and TT wanted to focus on getting his career started, so it made sense for him to move in with his boyfriend while BB and I started looking for a place better for dealing with grad school.
> 
> So like I said, BB and I got into the same grad program, and grad school is _fucking expensive y’all._ We both got jobs to help support it, and mine came with better insurance. We were looking to see if there was a way to add BB onto mine and saw that there were a _lot_ of benefits and things we could access if we were married, especially when it came to filing our taxes.
> 
> It just made sense. We were already living together and sharing all our expenses, neither of us had a significant other who would be mad about it, and like I said he’d been my best friend since highschool. I trust him with my life.
> 
> We might also have been a little drunk when we finally went through with it. We’d just finished a huge project and went out for a celebratory drink and the courthouse was _right there._
> 
> Now is probably a good time to mention that I’ve been in love with BB for almost as long as I’ve known him.
> 
> I know it’s kinda fucked up but I swear I didn’t marry him thinking I could trick him into feeling the same way. This wasn’t some ‘gotcha! Now you’re stuck with me forever!’ thing. As I said we were drunk and had been joking about it for months at this point. It really hasn’t changed much in our relationship, but it feels wrong keeping this from him when he’d literally my husband.
> 
> Should I tell him how I feel? I don’t want to ruin a decade long friendship and the most important relationship outside of my brother. I can’t imagine he would have gotten this far without saying something if he felt the same way though.
> 
> TL:DR
> 
> I married my best friend for tax purposes but didn’t tell him I’ve been in love with him for a decade before we tied the knot. Is it too late to say something?

Lup reread the long post, making sure to get rid of any typos she could find before clicking post. It was very hard not to refresh the page over and over again, but before she could give into the urge she shut the laptop. It was almost midnight, so not exactly prime posting time.

Forcing herself to get up and go to bed, she told herself she’d check in the morning to see if there were any responses.

When she opened her laptop the next morning, going straight for it before even leaving her room, she figured she might have gotten lucky and got a few responses. Hell, if she managed to get up to ten that would have been way more of a response than she expected.

Refreshing the page, Lup nearly choked when she saw the responses.

354 comments, over 2.1k of those upvote things. Not the response she was expecting. Sure, it wasn’t like it was a fucking viral sensation, but damn. Immediately she started skimming through the responses.

A lot of them were pretty similar. She mostly skipped over the ones just repeating ‘Tell him!’ and ‘this is adorable’ over and over again. Every so often there would be a question or a longer response though, and she’d pause as she read through it.

> _What makes you think he doesn’t like you back? Is it just that he hasn’t told you, because you haven’t said anything either_
> 
> _Did u tell anyone about the marriage? Do ur families know?_
> 
> _Hey, I think you’re right with your feeling that you should say something. Even if he doesn’t feel the same way (which the majority of people here seem to think that’s unlikely anyway) it’s better than keeping it a secret. How long have you been married? I know you said neither of you are dating anyone now, but did you talk about if you ever wanted to date? I’m just saying, how would you feel if he came home one day and told you he was looking to date someone. Feels like the kind of thing you should figure out before getting married._

There were more, literal hundreds more, and a lot of them were raising points she’d already thought of, while some managed to bring up new and fun anxieties that had never even occurred to her before.

There were just too many to read right now. Taking a deep breath, Lup prepared to start writing an update to answer at least some of the repeated questions that stuck out to her.

Before she could though she heard a knock at her door.

“Hey Lup? You good?” Barry’s voice came in through the door, concern obvious in his voice. Glancing at the clock, she cursed under her breath realizing how late it was. She hadn’t meant to sit there for so long reading the responses.

“I’m good babe! I’ll be out in a minute,” she said. Barry gave her a quick affirmative, and Lup shut the laptop before moving to get dressed. They didn’t have any classes today, but they were planning on meeting up with Taako and Kravitz for lunch, since it was a rare moment where they were all free.

Lup put the post out of her mind, telling herself to just enjoy the day. It would still be there when she got back after all.

It was, and there were at least another two hundred comments along with it. She was too impatient to wait until Barry went to sleep again, so instead she got it up on her phone, starting to type up a reply as she laid out on the couch.

> Wow okay this got a lot more traction than I anticipated. So to answer a lot of questions yes, everyone knows we’re married. BB gave me a ring a week after we made it official, and we did the whole status change on facebook and all of that. It’s kind of been a running thing in our group of friends, how much we act like a couple.
> 
> I don’t have a lot of proof one way or the other on if he feels the same, if I’m being honest. We did kiss when we got married, and a couple other times usually as jokes, mistletoe and that sort of stuff. I’m sure that if the situation were reversed though he would have had no problem marrying my brother if he thought it would help him out. TT and I don’t have a lot of family, BB is the closest we have and I know he would do anything for either of us.

“What are you writing?” Barry asked, knocking her out of her thoughts as he went and sat down on the other end of the couch. Lup tried not to look like a kid caught with their hand in a cookie jar.

“Nothing you need to worry about babe,” she said with a wink, swinging her legs up and resting her feet in his lap. If she played it up like that he usually let it go. She could see a thoughtful look on his face as he tried to figure out what she could be hiding.

“Well now I’m curious, it’s not my birthday coming up,” he said, carefully starting to massage the bottom of her feet. They had spent several hours after lunch walking around and shopping with Taako and Kravitz. It had been great, but her feet were killing her now, so she immediately relaxed into his touch.

“Oh, hmm,” Barry added, an idea clearly coming to him. Lup lowered her phone, raising an eyebrow at that.

“Oh hmm what, Barold?” she asked, and he shrugged noncommittally.

“Nothing, I just realized, uh, technically our anniversary is soon,” he said, and Lup almost dropped her phone at that.

“Shit, seriously?” she asked, but she knew as soon as he said it that he was right. “I can’t believe it’s already been almost a year.”

“Yeah, it’s wild. We uh, we should do something,” he suggested.

“Sounds good,” Lup said, quickly starting to type again.

> I can’t imagine him being with someone else. It’s selfish, and it’s not something we ever talked about. As long as I’ve known him he’s never expressed interest in anyone though, not in that sort of way. Like, we’ve definitely bonded over hot people watching. Everyone is hot, such is the bi dilemma, but when it comes to actual, long term relationships… he’s never had a serious significant other. There was a stint in our first two years of college where we were both dating around, (I was trying to get over the huge crush on him, it didn’t work) but nothing ever went farther than a second date.
> 
> Eventually we both just stopped trying and figured it was easier sticking together I guess.
> 
> UPDATE: As I was typing this response BB brought up the fact that our anniversary is coming up soon. He said we should do something for it, but I don’t know how serious he’s being. I just said that sounds good and he didn’t say anything else. We spent the day out shopping with my brother and his fiancé and now he’s massaging my feet while I write this what do I do?

Lup could see the responses coming in fast now to her update, but she forced herself to ignore her phone for now. If she spent too long on it he might start to get suspicious, and she wasn’t a good liar when it came to him. Instead she let herself relax as Barry put on a documentary they’d both been wanting to watch but hadn’t had the time to with grad school.

It was nice, even if a part of Lup was longing to curl up against Barry as they watched, instead of sitting so far away.

By the time they both went to bed and Lup looked at her phone again, there was a whole new slew of responses.

> _He’s massaging your feet and talking about celebrating your anniversary and you can’t tell if he’s into you?! Lady you need to get over yourself and jump his bones_
> 
> _Please tell us the story of how he gave you the wedding ring! How did that not end with you both confessing? It’s clear that he’s in love with you too, just say something! We’re rooting for you!_
> 
> _Have you tried asking your brother for advice? If you’re both so close to him he might be able to tell if the feelings between you both are mutual._
> 
> _You should say you’ve got a date and see how he reacts_
> 
> _Tell Him Tell Him Tell Him Tell Him Tell Him Tell Him Tell Him Tell Him Tell Him Tell Him Tell Him Tell Him Tell Him Tell Him Te_
> 
> _Fuck him and see what happens_

Lup was very glad she decided to wait to read the new responses, because she could feel her face getting progressively more red. They all seemed to be in a pretty damn solid agreement, and it was hard not to get her hopes up. Still, there was no way it was this simple, she couldn’t explain everything.

She really wasn’t gonna be able to got to sleep now though, so instead she started typing up another response.

> My brother is an incredibly unreliable narrator. He does know about my feelings for BB and is supportive, but it’s not that simple. He won’t even consider the possibility that BB might not feel the same way about me, and he’s been like this since high school. He was actually pretty pissed when we got married before him and K, especially since we’re not actually together.
> 
> As for the ring, there’s not too much of a story there. We didn’t really bring up the marriage after it happened. A week later the official paperwork came in for my last name change and BB gave me the ring. We were on the couch looking over the paperwork and he gave me a ring box. It was his mother’s (she died our freshman year of college, it was a hard time for all of us) and he said he’d promised her he’d give it to the person he married. Which happened to be me.
> 
> I cried and thanked him, and he said it felt only right since TT and I had been close to her too. We got maybe a little wine drunk and that was when we changed all our statuses online to married and posted a bunch of pictures of us together with the ring. I’m pretty sure a good chunk of our distant relatives still think we’re seriously married.
> 
> If I was to tell him how should I even do that? It seems creepy to say ‘Hey I’ve loved you for ten years, surprise!’ and anything more subtle than that feels like it might not get the message across. Anyone responding with ‘jump his bones’ no. I mean, I could and if he feels the same way I absolutely will, but I’m not swinging out of the gate with that as the first move.
> 
> I really, really love him, and I want it to be special when I tell him that. If I tell him that. I can’t imagine my life without him in it, and I’m lucky to have even this much. It’s honestly crazy that I can have it so good and still be unsatisfied and want more. He deserves so much and I don’t know if I’m enough for him.

She didn’t mean to get quite so honest at the end there, but it was getting late and she was tired. These emotions that she usually kept buried inside her had been at the forefront of her mind all day. Every time Taako and Kravitz had held hands or kissed while they were out, Lup wanted to reach over and hold Barry’s. She wanted to cuddle up with him and let him know that she loved him and loved being married to him and wanted all of this to be real.

She wanted him to be happy, and more than that, she wanted to be the one to _make_ him happy. And maybe that was selfish, it shouldn’t matter to her as long as he was happy, but she also wanted him to be _hers._

Over the next few days she continued to get messages and responses on the post. Lots were asking for more updates, interspersed with advice and general comments on how cute they were and encouraging her to go for it. There was definitely something kind of wild, seeing so many people so dead sure that this would work. That Barry loved her back.

She was scrolling through some of the responses now, while Barry drove them to lecture. It was a short drive and they traded off frequently.

> _Your brother might know something you don’t if he’s been telling you to confess since high school. Think about it_
> 
> _You have the perfect opportunity to tell him on your anniversary! You should just be straight forward, it sounds like beating around the bush doesn’t work well for you two._
> 
> _Upd8?_
> 
> _pics or it didn’t happen_
> 
> _I know you said first step shouldn’t be jump his bones but first step probably shouldn’t be ‘get married’ either. Consider smashing his brains out?_
> 
> _You two are adorable! Please tell me you’ve confessed!_

Lup slipped her phone back into her pocket, and she’d been trying to figure out a way to start to approach this for days now. Most of the actually descent sounding advice said she should say something on their anniversary, and she was trying to gather the resolve to do just that. It was a week away now, and they hadn’t mentioned it since Barry had brought it up the first time.

Steeling her nerves, she figured the car was the safest place to bring up these sorts of things.

“So, what do we wanna do for our anniversary?” she asked, trying to be casual. They were stopped at a red light, and she could see the surprise on Barry’s face at the question.

“Oh uh, I’m not sure? I hadn’t really thought about it much,” he said, and Lup tried not to show any sort of disappointment at that. Of course he hadn’t thought about it much, since there wasn’t actually anything real to celebrate. “Is there anything in particular you had in mind?” he asked.

“Dunno,” Lup said with a shrug. There was a million and one different things she had in mind, but it would be wrong of her to voice any of them. “We could look around, see if there’s any sort of cool exhibits going on at the museum or something,” she offered, and it wasn’t like that wasn’t something they wouldn’t do together normally.

“That sounds nice,” Barry said, and they were pulling into the parking lot now. They hadn’t exactly been running late, but their professor was an asshole who got pissed if people weren’t at least five minutes early.

“Lup, I-” Barry started suddenly, and Lup paused from where she’d been unbuckling herself.

“Yeah, babe?” she asked, looking over at him with a slight frown. It was weird, she couldn’t tell what he was thinking, and he was usually so open.

“Nothing, let’s get to class,” he said, and Lup wanted to press him on it, wanted to ask if everything was okay and wanted to just pull his adorable face into a kiss. But instead she nodded, getting out of the car and following him up to the lab.

Lup couldn’t tell if Barry was being quieter in class than usual. There was a lot of sitting around as they waited for results to finish up from their tests, and normally they would talk during that time.

Tonight though she was left staring at the centrifuge spinning round and round to separate out the proteins they needed while Barry picked away at his phone. She considered calling him out on it, but it wasn’t like she hadn’t been the same way lately.

“Bear, can you take this down?” she asked as the next round finished up, and he quickly nodded, putting his phone away and helping her out again.

The rest of the night went like that, and eventually Barry must’ve been done with whatever he was doing, because he stopped using his phone as much. By the time class was over it was late, and they grabbed some shitty take out on the way home. Lup hadn’t been able to cook as much as she would have liked while they were both in school, but they only had about a year left.

And then… and then Lup wasn’t really sure what. She wanted to stay like this, to stay with Barry, but she had no idea if this was his forever plan.

She would soon though, because she was going to tell him. Next week, on their anniversary, she was going to set him down and lay it all out so that there was nothing to misconstrue.

And if Barry didn’t… if he didn’t feel the same way, she could deal with that. She would respect whatever he wanted, because as much as she wanted him, his happiness was the most important thing. If you love them let them go and all that jazz.

(Lup had always _hated_ that saying)

She hadn’t given any sort of update to her post in a while, and the comments had started to die down after the week. She still found herself checking it every so often though, mostly when she had some time to herself.

When she refreshed it the next morning, the surge of comments that had happened overnight left her speechless. Quickly scrolling through them, they all seemed to be about the same thing.

> _Did you see this?!?! [LINK]_
> 
> _Is your husband on here too? I think your husband might be on here too [LINK]_
> 
> _This you? Pls confirm! [LINK]_
> 
> _[LINK] [LINK] [LINK]_

There were hundreds of them, all linking to the same post. Without thinking twice, Lup clicked one of the many, many links.

> **How do I(28M human) tell my wife(26F elf) that I love her?**
> 
> This is going to sound fake, but I can’t seem to find a way to let my wife know I’m in love with her?
> 
> We got married about a year ago, and our anniversary is coming up soon. I can’t put into words just how amazing she is, we met in high school and I’ve been in love with her since our senior year. I never imagined it would ever go anywhere, I’m not being over-dramatic when I say she’s perfect. She’s the smartest, funniest, most beautiful woman I ever met, and for a while I told myself it was fine. I never expected anything to come of it, and if I didn’t get my hopes up then I couldn’t be disappointed, ya know?
> 
> During our second year of college I told her brother how I feel. He already figured, and we’d all been living together anyway (her brother’s a chef, my wife and I were both going into biology) as we got our undergrads, and he encouraged me to make a move. Now her brother is an asshole, but he's also my best friend. They know each other better than anyone, and he was using his sincere voice. I still didn't think I really stood a chance, but if he was telling me to go for it? I figured it wouldn't hurt to at least try.
> 
> Every time I try though, something seems to go wrong. I just can’t get the words out, and now it’s gotten to the point where we’re _married_ and I still haven’t told her how I feel. I know that sounds stupid, how do you get married to someone without letting them know you might be interested? Well, the American healthcare system is a fucking nightmare and IBS and asthma can be more serious than people think, okay?
> 
> Also, we were drunk. I still feel so stupid that I let it happen like that. She deserves a proper wedding, not stumbling over to the courthouse after eating too many appetizers at TGI Fridays.
> 
> I tried to fix it afterwards, I really did try to tell her. I gave her my mother’s wedding ring, and I _almost_ went through with it. My mother had died a few years ago, and it seemed like the perfect way to confess. I thought she might have felt the same way too, and after she put the ring on I was so close to kissing her.
> 
> But she pulled away and started joking about it on facebook, so I just went along with the joke.
> 
> Her brother keeps telling me that she’s interested, but I have no idea anymore. I brought up our anniversary coming up a few days ago and she didn’t seem to care, but she just asked about it and started suggesting things we could do?
> 
> I love her more than anything. If she doesn’t feel the same way it’ll hurt, but I’m already so lucky to have had this much time with her. I still want to say something, even if it ends up ruining the good thing I have now.
> 
> TL:DR
> 
> I love my wife and want to tell her so, but every time I try she seems to think it’s a joke. How do I tell her? Like I said, I’ve tried everything.

Lup could barely process what she was reading. This post had hundreds of comments as well, although it had only been posted last night. Still, she read down to some of the comments he had responded to.

> _Have you considered ‘Hey, I love you?’_
> 
> _Yes. The last time I did she gave me double fingerguns, winked, and said ‘that’s showbizz babe.’ I would kill a man if she asked me to._

Lup let out a high pitched whine, letting her phone fall onto her face.

She did that. She could very clearly remember doing that.

And this was Barry. She could say that without a shadow of a doubt, too many things matched up, too many things that she didn’t mention in any of her responses that no one would know to fake. Her heart felt like it was trying to break out of her chest and her face was on fire.

All this time, Barry had been trying to tell her. God, she was a fucking idiot.

Going back to her original post, she added one simple update.

> Oh.

She had been planning on waiting until their anniversary, but fuck that. Slipping her phone into her pocket, she stormed out of her room the picture of a woman on a mission. Thankfully, Barry was already awake, making coffee in their kitchen. He turned at the sound of her sudden entrance, a sleepy but pleasant look on his face.

“Morning Lup,” he said, yawning slightly afterwards. He was so fucking cute, and a huge part of her was pissed that she could have had this all so much sooner.

Instead of answering she stormed across the kitchen, still giving Barry enough time to pull away if he wanted to. Instead though he just looked confused as she cupped his face before pulling him down into a kiss.

She could feel him freeze up, and there was a part of Lup that was terrified that she had fucked up. That it had been some trick, that maybe Taako had found the post and made a fake response to get her to made a move.

Then his brain seemed to catch up with the shock, and she could feel him relax against her as he started to hesitantly return the kiss. They had kissed before, but those had all been quick pecks. Even the kiss that had sealed their marriage had only lingered on for a few seconds. Longer than any of their others, and maybe that should had tipped Lup off. There were a million different things that should have tipped her off that she could only see now as Barry kissed her like she was oxygen and he was suffocating.

“I’m such an idiot,” she said when she finally pulled back.

“No you’re not,” Barry answered immediately, despite how dazed he looked. “I am uh, a little confused about what- what brought this on? Not that I’m- I’m definitely not complaining,” he added. Instead of saying anything Lup pulled out her phone, getting up her original post and handing it over.

“There’s another post people linked in the comments, once you’re done reading that,” she said. Barry nodded subtly, and she could see him reading quickly, his already red face from the kiss getting even darker the longer he read.

Eventually she saw him click one of the links, and his eyes widened as realization struck him.

“Oh,” he said, and there was a beat before he started laughing. “We’re both dumb, okay?” he said, a smile spreading across his face now. It was infectious, Lup started to laugh as well when Barry wrapped his arms around her waist. “You really love me?” he asked, a bit of a dumbstruck tone to his voice.

“Of course,” Lup answered, hugging him back and letting her head rest on his shoulder. “You know it’s… it’s a little too short notice for this year, less than a week and all that, but if you wanted a real wedding, I’d be down to renew our vows next year. You deserve more than the lyrics to Never Gonna Give You Up sung badly in a courthouse,” she said, and she could feel Barry laughing against her.

“Don’t you dare change that, that was the best part of the whole night,” Barry said, his arms tightening around her slightly. “But otherwise yeah I’d- I’d love that,” he finished, getting choke up somewhat.

Pulling back, Lup was pretty sure she’d never seen Barry this overjoyed. She couldn’t believe she managed to make him this happy.

“I love you,” she said, because she did and she could and she couldn’t believe she waited so long to say it.

“That’s showbizz babe,” Barry responded, actually fucking _winking,_ and Lup broke down into laughter, punching his shoulder without any real strength.

“Fuck you! I can’t believe my own husband would betray me like this,” she said in between bouts of laughter. Barry was laughing too, after a minute pulling Lup back some so that he could look her in the eyes.

“I love you too,” he said, a weight to the words like he had been waiting so long to say them. Lup could relate to that.

Pulling him into another kiss, they had a lot of lost time to make up.

> FINAL UPDATE: if you saw that other post yes, that was my husband. Turns out we’ve both been huge idiots about the whole thing and also killing my brother for the last decade.
> 
> We’re together now, officially officially. We’re probably just gonna have a nice night in for this anniversary, but next year we’re planning on renewing our vows and having a real proper wedding.
> 
> Wanted to thank y’all for telling me to go for it. Apparently you all and my brother were right (my brother is refusing to let me forget that he was right and that he has been right for the past ten years) and I needed to just be straightforward.
> 
> We’re really, really happy.
> 
> ps. Yes, I did jump his bones, you all can stop asking now ;)

**Author's Note:**

> I got this idea yesterday at 3am and spent all day writing it. Oh boy it feels good to write a whole fic in a day again, it's been too long since I've had an idea that held my attention for that long. This was really fun to write.
> 
> as always, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
